


Waves

by Inaccessible Rail (strangetales)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Heart-Sharing, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 20:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5715934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetales/pseuds/Inaccessible%20Rail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman’s heart breaks in half and time stops. Her heart no longer beats within the walls of her bones, and his no longer beats at all; his body a cavernous mass, like a sunken ship. They disappear. (These are the moments between one heart becoming two.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waves

**Author's Note:**

> I still don’t know what this is, but the general idea is that when your heart gets split in two you probably die for a second, and when you die, time stops making sense, and maybe your soul(s) exist in this strange new realm for however long it takes the other half of your heart to reach the person you’re giving it to, and in this case that realm is a foggy island off the coast of Maine and Emma Swan is essentially a hermit-witch that doesn’t believe in magic and Killian Jones is a half-dead sailor (that somehow maintains perfect facial scruff).
> 
> There's an actual possibility that this only makes sense to me, so I'm sorry if I end up wasting your time with this weird nonsense.

A woman’s heart breaks in half and time stops. Her heart no longer beats within the walls of her bones, and his no longer beats at all; his body a cavernous mass, like a sunken ship. They disappear. (These are the moments between one heart becoming two.)

//

_Thump._   


A one-handed man washes up on the rocky shore of her beach on a cold, gloomy day in early spring. Technically, it’s not “her beach," but it’s easier to argue semantics of land ownership than it would be to acknowledge the familiar cut of his jaw, or the boyish wisps of hair curling on the top of his head (that she’s _never_ seen before).

Emma Swan refers to the stretch of beach less than a mile away from her cottage as “hers” because no one ever goes there, and it may as well be. Even in the height of those stifling summer days, the tourists prefer a less “prickly" shore, without all the sharp, slippery rocks covered in algae, and the broken shells that linger on the sand. Last summer she had woken to the shrill cries of children, the unfortunate offspring of parents who had thought the excursion clever; of course, if they had taken the time to speak to _any_ of the locals, they would have told them to stay away.

“There’s a witch on that beach,” the gnarly old fishermen would whisper. Those aged, weathered nags who poke fun at their poor wives, giggling at the gossipy nature of women, meanwhile they can always be found with their dry, chapped lips wrapped around the bottle of a cheap beer until the wee hours of the morning, spreading lies and half-truths amongst themselves and the occasional tourist that stumbles into town.

Emma can’t remember in tremendous detail exactly _how_ she had come to live on the island, only that she had always been there; alone, but not entirely discontented with that loneliness. The nights were cold sometimes (and the early mornings), and when she saw the only other mug left on the shelf when she went to grab her own each morning she told herself that there was no sudden tightness in her chest, as if there was something she was supposed to be doing, but for whatever reason was unable to. Presumably it had something to do with the lack of visitors due to the “witch” situation. Emma Swan did not consider herself a witch, it was only that the antique power lines connected to the cottage were in desperate need of replacing, and the storms just happened to whip themselves into a frenzy when she found a suspiciously kitschy ring in the drawer of her nightstand and for the absolute life of her could not remember where it had come from. Rubies were _so_ not her thing.

//

_Thump._   


When Killian Jones stood on dry land his legs grew suddenly wobbly, as if he were sea-sick (not that he could recall stepping one foot on dry land in recent years). He preferred the warped, wooden deck of his ship to the immovable earth; the salty spray of the sea as opposed to the comforts a hot bath might afford. He was never cleaner than when he was at the helm, purified in his own sweat, the smell of the damp wood and the mournful cry of the birds.

Sometimes he got the impression that maybe he was cursed. For one thing, he couldn’t remember the last conversation he’d had with another human being (which was clearly _absurd_ ), and for another, he had a hook for a hand, which, if he was being honest, felt a tad silly. Killian didn’t know why his hand was missing or why a hook had replaced it, but he did know that it ached constantly. It was one of the two reasons why he occasionally took issue with the sea; because it was always damp, and the gnarled mass of flesh and bone hidden beneath the metal of his “hook” always felt cold and tight, as if his hand were clamped in a vice somewhere.

The other disadvantage was the isolation. He wasn’t lonely per say, but every once in a while he would catch himself muttering nonsense beneath his breath, and the words would get carried into the air and the only response would be frightful, airborne shrieking, which had begun to sound like vicious cackles. And if he were being honest with himself, manning all that heavy rigging solo (and with one hand no less) wasn’t as fun as one might think.

He felt a hot anger tugging away at his insides sometimes and he didn’t know why, which often made him angrier. There was nothing for him to be angry _about_ , was there? But for all the nights he lay awake, trying to ignore the persistent ache at his wrist, he couldn’t help but feel as if he had been in the middle of a fight that he never finished. And he felt empty, like all the air had been let out of his lungs and his body was physically unable to take another breath.

But stranded in the middle of vast ocean, how much more air does he bloody _need_? He’s got more air than he knows what to do with, but sometimes the wind is lined with salt, and it stings his eyes and splits the flesh of his lips. Sometimes it hurts to breathe.

//

_Thump._   


The one-handed man showed up after Emma Swan stubbed her toe against the kitchen table and it had inexplicably started to hail; a coincidental moment of bad mood and bad weather. It had also been Emma’s birthday (apparently), and since she had never been able to place her exact date of birth (no parents to speak of), in addition to the fact that she had (for some reason) moved to an island located at the damn near _ends of the earth_ (that she wasn’t quite sure she could actually _leave_ ), she had broken down in frustrated tears, the power had gone out, and heavy, angry _wet_ had suddenly begun pelting the morphed glass of her old windows (that were terrible at keeping out the cold).

The beach is like an enormous sinkhole the next morning; wet sand like mud that makes it feel like there are heavy weights strapped to her boots. The birds are unusually quiet that morning; usually she can’t help but feel like she’s being mocked by their incessant squawking, but for some reason they seem to have disappeared. While she would usually rejoice in the quiet of the morning, she can’t help but see it as some kind of sign. The air is heavy, the earth is like mud and she can’t stop sinking.

//

_Thump._   


He’s never gotten caught in a storm before but he kinds of likes it. His legs go wobbly on deck and he can’t help but feel like something is about to change. And his wrist still aches something fierce, but it’s hard to focus on the pain when he’s getting tossed around deck as if he weighed no more than a grain of sand. His hair becomes wet and heavy, sticking to the heated skin of his forehead, and his clothes are soaking and feel heavier than ever. The jacket goes. The boots. His bare feet slide along the deck and he’ll probably get a few splinters, but he’s never felt more alive than he does in this moment.

Lightning flashes overhead and the darkness recedes for a few precious seconds, and in the distance he thinks he sees a craggy mountain line, some tall trees in the foreground; but it must be a lie, and it’s dark again.

The last thing to go is the hook, and it gleams in another flash of lightning as he casts it into the sea.

_Good riddance_ , he thinks gleefully. His feet slip, his head cracks loudly against the deck, and he stops thinking.

//

_Thump._   


She’s admiring the cut of his jaw before she notices the hand. It’s sharp, like the jagged edges of the rocks that line the beach; “prickly,” like her. There’s a shadow of a beard on his face and she wonders for a moment what it might look like full in the midst of a brutal winter. She tries not to giggle.

Her heart is beating very loudly in her chest and she wishes that it would stop, because it feels like it might jump into her throat, out her mouth, and fly away. It feels like maybe she should run, only she knows somewhere in the back of her mind that the sand is wet and she’ll only sink.

His feet are bare, and his toes are starting to turn an unsettling purple color so she should probably get him inside, only she can’t seem to stop _cataloguing_. So few people on her beach, and this one seems to have fallen right into her lap. He’s a strange shade of beautiful and he smells a bit briny (but she doesn’t mind, there are worse things to smell of than the sea). 

She lowers her ear to his mouth to check for breath and her heart beats heavy again. Almost like it’s about to come right out of her chest and, okay, it’s starting to actually _hurt_ now. It’s like a forward tug, as if there’s a ribbon tied around her heart and there’s someone impatient at the other end, pulling, pulling, pulling, and she has to lay a hand flat against her chest like it's the lid of a crowded suitcase you can’t keep shut.

His breath is warm and it reminds her of company, and the lonely mug that sits on the shelf in the kitchen next to her own. In hindsight she’ll recall that she couldn’t really help herself. Because her heart was doing that strange tugging thing anyway, and she was absolutely _sick_ of seeing that mug all by itself day after day, and so when their lips met it was more of a clumsy fall than a cognizant placing of lips on lips.

Her heart stops. They disappear.

//

_Thump-Thump._   


The first thing he hears is a rhythmic beat, only he doesn’t hear it so much as he feels it inside his chest. And he realizes that he had forgotten what it felt like, and he had _missed_ it. Like an old friend, like the face of someone who _knows_ you and _loves_ you and for the entire world he cannot fathom how he had gotten on so long without it.

He opens his eyes and her intake of shocked breath, as if she were coming up for air – it’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever heard, and he was planning on telling her so, but he’s already tucked away into the crook of her neck and her arms are wrapped painfully around his shoulders and he’ll get around to telling her later.

“I missed _you_ ,” she whispers in his ear, almost surprised. And he would be insulted only he knows _exactly_ what she means, because even in that place, where not a jot made sense, he knew that he missed _her_. Even without knowing her name or her face, there had been an Emma-shaped hole inside him somewhere and now it’s full of blonde hair and red leather jackets and he _knows_ (somehow) that it will never sit empty again.

//

_Thump-Thump._   


**Author's Note:**

> In retrospect this is probably one of the cheesiest things I've ever written but this ship is actual cheese so it kinda makes sense. Feel free to chat about it/them on [Tumblr](http://starlessness.tumblr.com) with me!


End file.
